NCC Class WT
The LMS Northern Counties Committee (NCC) WT Class is a class of 2-6-4T steam locomotives. 18 were built at Derby Works in England to the design of George Ivatt between 1946 and 1950. They were numbered 1-10 and 50-7. They were a tank engine version of the NCC Class W moguls. A tank engine did not require turning at termini and the LMS had produced a series of successful 2-6-4T's. Like the LMS Fairburn 2-6-4T built at the same time, they had a hopper bunker and absence of plating ahead of the cylinders.
The locomotives were built with many L.M.S. standard features such as a self - cleaning smokebox, rocking firegrate, self - emptying ashpan, side window cab and a simplified footplate together with others which followed N.C.C. practice, such as a water top - feed on a parallel boiler (as opposed to the taper boilers being used by the L.M.S. at the time), Dreadnought type vacuum brake gear, Detroit sight feed cylinder lubricator and a cast number plate.
Technical Details:
Cylinders: (2) 19" x 26"
Boiler Pressure : 200 lb/sq.in.
Driving Wheel Diameter : 6 feet.
Weight in working order : 87 tons.
In December 1962 locomotive No.50 received a boiler from one of the ex-NCC 2-6-0 tender locomotives, the boiler and firebox being overhauled and repaired at Derby.
These were the last mainline operation steam locomotives in the British Isles, Córas Iompair Éireann steam in the Republic of Ireland having ended in 1962 and British Railways steam in Great Britain having finished in 1968, the last being withdrawn in 1971.
One, No. 4 has been preserved by the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland.
